Balancing It All: My Story of Juggling Priorities and Purpose

Balancing It All, Digital Edition

Based on Print Edition

Copyright © 2014 by Candach’e Inc.

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-4336-8184-4

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Dewey Decimal Classification: 248.843

Subject Heading: WOMEN \ CHRISTIAN LIFE \ WORK AND FAMILY

Unless otherwise stated, Scripture is taken from the English Standard Version® (
esv®
), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Also used: Holman Christian Standard Bible (
hcsb
), Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

Also used: New American Standard Bible (
nasb
), © the Lockman Foundation, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977; used by permission.

I dedicate this book to my family, friends, and fans.

Without you, I wouldn’t have as much to balance!

I love you all!

Acknowledgments

From Candace:

I’d like to thank Jennifer Lyell for believing that I’m more than a one-hit wonder. It’s because of your encouragement, enthusiasm, and insight that I was able draw out the practical truths of my life and use them as a witnessing opportunity. You saw in me what I couldn’t see myself. I am blessed to have you as my editor and friend.

Dana Wilkerson, there’s nothing like being thrown together and getting to know each other really quickly! I couldn’t have done this without you. Thank you for all your hard work and efforts. You are a superstar!

Mom and Dad, you’ve been my rock-solid example when it comes to family. You’ve continued a generational legacy with your commitment to one another through good times and difficult ones. Thank you for being an example of a godly marriage. I love you with all my heart.

I’d also like to thank Jeffery Brooks and Ford Englerth for effortlessly handling all the details including my vision for the cover shoot. Thank you to Tara Brooks, Rowan Daly, and Juliet Vo. My sincerest thanks to B&H Publishing for your continued support and trust. Thank you to everyone including my Twitter and Facebook followers who prayed for me through this book, with a special shout-out to Stacy W.

To my beautiful family, thank you for your patience, love, and support when you see your wife and mom stare at a computer screen for countless hours at weeks on end. I can’t promise it won’t happen again. And to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to You all glory is given; for it wasn’t me who did a thing, but You who sacrificed it all and created me with a heart’s desire to know You, follow You, and freely accept Your love, mercy, and grace.

From Dana:

Candace, working with you has been a joy. It was a fast, roller-coaster ride, but well worth it. Thanks for all of the prayers, hard work, and late nights!

Jennifer, as always it has been a pleasure partnering with you on this book. Thank you for your support, trust, and friendship.

Mom and Dad, thank you for your unconditional love, for being such great examples for me, and for showing me what it means to live a full and balanced life. I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without you!

Chad, Beth, Maura, Claire, and Nicholas, thanks for your undying support and for providing me with such a great home-away-from-home.

I also want to thank many other friends and family members who have prayed for me and been patient with me as I’ve worked on this book: the Baugh & Dunn clan; Amanda, Ashley, Nicole, Zack, and many others at Osage Hills; as well as Heidi, Holley, Jenny, and Vicki. You all are the best!

Most of all, I want to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, without whom none of this would be possible!

Introduction

S
o you think I’ve got it all figured out? If you read anything about me or from me online, it may seem like I have no trouble balancing family life, work, my social life, church, and everything else I do. I realize it could seem perfectly joyful and balanced when you read my tweets or see my Facebook updates. “Candace, you’re my role model,” women respond. Or, “Your faithfulness is so inspiring!” I also get a lot of, “You’re such a great mom.” And then there’s, “I want to be just like you!” The compliments may feel good, but many days I feel like all I’m really good at is fooling everybody!

If you were to see me on the street and ask, “What are your top priorities?” my immediate response would be, “God and family.” In fact, many people say their priorities are, in order: (1) God, (2) family, (3) work. That sounds great, but it’s not really a hierarchy, and priorities are more complicated than that. As a Christian, my love for and obedience to God should permeate all else. So He’s not the top priority, He’s the ultimate priority and is a part of everything I do. Throughout this book if it seems that I’m not repeating the fact that God is or should be my “top priority,” it’s because that’s a given for me as a Christian. In all that I do, I strive to do what God would have me do.

I also find that my family is—or can be—an aspect of many of the other priorities in my life. For instance, I work to help financially support my family. And my choice to live a healthy life directly impacts everyone in my home—both because it also causes them to live in a healthy manner and because when I’m healthy it helps me to better take care of my kids and husband.

With the exception of God and family, I find that the expression of most of my other priorities will change in importance from day to day, from week to week, and throughout the different stages of my life. When I think about this, I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 3:1–8:

For everything there is a season, and a time for
every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is
planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather
stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from
embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

No two days, weeks, years, or seasons of anyone’s life look exactly the same. Some things stay the same, but our lives are constantly changing. We need to be open to those changes and be willing to reorder and balance our lives as necessary.

If you’re like me, sometimes it seems as if life isn’t so much a balancing act as a juggling act. There are so many things going on that I just can’t manage to hold onto all of them at once. When this happens, I just remember that I need to reprioritize and reevaluate every single day. I also remind myself that I can’t do it on my own—I need God’s help, as well as the help of my husband, kids, and other people in my life to make it all happen and pick up the slack.

As you think about how to balance your life and prioritize the many parts of it, I want you to remember that your priorities are
your
priorities—no one else’s. You are unique and your situation is unique. So while it’s wise to look at others’ choices, don’t copy them exactly or compare yourself to them. They have different people in their lives, different situations, and different resources. Along that same vein, don’t expect others to prioritize their lives the same way you do.

Before we get started, I want to acknowledge that some people might say that the easiest way to create balance in our lives is to strip our commitments down to the bare minimum. You’re going to see that is definitely not my message. Instead, I think balance is achieved when we are well rounded and focusing on all the things God has created us to be and do. That is when our priorities will most clearly overlap and it is through that overlap that balance is most natural. So, yes, this is a book about balance, but you’ll see that it’s about understanding principles that help identify what I’ve learned to prioritize in life. And through those priorities, I’ve learned the value of balance—even though I don’t always master it!

As you read this book, consider the principles found among the pages, but don’t try to model your life exactly after mine. At the same time, try not to discount the things I say or do simply because you think I can’t relate to you due to our different lives and experiences. Remember that you are unique. Your life is different than mine, so the precise way you balance and prioritize the parts of your life will be different than the way I do it, but we can all learn from the principles we see in each other’s choices.

I hope you’ll learn from my stories, the good and the bad. I’m not superwoman. I’m just another working mom and wife trying to balance, juggle, and maintain this twenty-first-century life, living it to the fullest, with conviction and morals, trying to live it well. Warning: There will be some spilled milk and broken smart phones along the way, but if we’re in it together, we will find our joy!

Blessings,

Candace

Chapter 1

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.

—Proverbs 22:6

W
hat would you like for your birthday, Maks?” Val and I asked our youngest before his seventh birthday. His response: “All I want to do is play hockey. Please, Papa? Please? I wanna be a hockey player just like you!” Ugh, three years of skirting the issue finally came to a sudden halt. How could we resist those big, blue, hopeful eyes? How could we resist the one and only request for his birthday? Maks had been begging to play hockey since he was four years old and Val had been pushing his hardest to turn our kids into tennis players. Players can get injured in any sport, but hockey can be extremely brutal. After six concussions and multiple knee, shoulder, elbow, hip, and back surgeries, Val would do everything in his power to steer our boys clear of hockey life. I mean, come on, tennis could be played in the sunshine, outdoors, on clay and grass—surfaces not nearly as hard and cold as rock-solid ice. But as life would have it, our boys were destined to play hockey, and not without Dad as their head coach.

“Do what I say, not what I do.” How many times have you heard parents say that to their kids? Probably a lot. And how many times do the kids do what the parents say instead of what they do? Likely none. The truth is, when it comes to children, “monkey see, monkey do” is the name of the game. Even from a young age, kids will do what they see their parents doing, and without some form of intervention they’ll likely continue those patterns throughout their lives.

As a parent, I have to remember that I am constantly teaching my children, whether I want to—or realize I’m doing it—or not. Though I believe it is important to tell my kids how their dad and I want them to live and behave, the primary means of teaching is through action. If we live the way we want our kids to live, there’s a good chance they’ll pick up on it. When we purposefully live balanced lives and strive to prioritize in the ways God wants us to, our kids will see, experience, and emulate that without even knowing it’s happening.

One of the reasons I am able to balance my life and keep my priorities in line is because of the example my parents set for me. Thinking back to what I learned from them, I consider how important it is to create balanced lives for my own children. I am so grateful for my parents’ influence in my life and the lives of my three siblings. Were they perfect parents? No. No one is. But for the most part they strove to do what they believed was right, and I believe I am a better person for it.

Cameron Family Beginnings

Robert Cameron and Barbara Bausmith were married on June 22, 1969 (exactly twenty-seven years before my husband Val and I got married). Mom was barely out of high school, and Dad was a junior high math teacher. My brother Kirk was born in the fall of 1970, followed by my sister Bridgette eleven months later. Three years passed and my sister Melissa was born, and then on April 6, 1976, I rounded out the Cameron clan. Not long after my birth, my parents bought a modest home in Canoga Park, California, where they lived until November of 2012.